


xvii. i did not see that coming

by tempestaurora



Series: the kids aren't alright [whumptober 2020] [17]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Hurt feelings, Pre-Canon, Vanya's Memoir, Whumptober
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:14:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27066205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tempestaurora/pseuds/tempestaurora
Summary: The announcement of Extra-Ordinary: My Life as Number Seven by Vanya Hargreeves rocked the whole fucking world.OR: Reginald Hargreeves' notebook shows up on Vanya's doorstep, she writes her tell-all memoir, and Allison loses her mind.
Relationships: Allison Hargreeves & The Hargreeves, Allison Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves, Vanya Hargreeves & The Hargreeves
Series: the kids aren't alright [whumptober 2020] [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1930186
Comments: 31
Kudos: 180





	xvii. i did not see that coming

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Dirty Secret
> 
> late posting today because,,, i forgot sorry lmao

The announcement of _Extra-Ordinary: My Life as Number Seven_ by Vanya Hargreeves rocked the whole fucking world.

At what point was anyone supposed to see this coming? Let alone Allison Hargreeves, the author’s _sister,_ who found out about this tell-all book at the same time as everyone else. It was announced on Twitter and followed by a talk show the next morning, where Vanya was quiet and plain and answered the interviewers’ questions simply and without drama.

_“So why didn’t the world know you exist, Vanya? We’ve all followed the Umbrella Academy, and there’s only ever been six—why was Number Seven such a secret?”_

_“Because Reginald Hargreeves wanted it to be that way,”_ Vanya replied. _“I was raised as the ordinary Number Seven – the only one who had no powers to speak of. And no powers meant having no worth in that household.”_

And then the book itself— _the book itself._

Allison had picked up a copy on the first day of release and had locked herself in her room until it was over. And she was _seething._ She was already pissed, already mad as hell that Vanya would tell all their dirty little secrets in this way, without even _consulting them_ – but the book was written in such a way that every chapter revealed something deeper, something darker.

It started with a dedication: _For Number Five and Ben,_ as perhaps a show that she actually _cared_ about her family, when the next three hundred pages begged to differ, and then she jumped right in.

_Sir Reginald Hargreeves did not legally acquire the seven children that made up the Umbrella Academy; he bought us. We once argued at length as to the order of our numbers, but we never reached a conclusion. Even today, they seem arbitrary._

_Our caretakers were Pogo; a biologically engineered chimpanzee, as sentient and caring as any human could be – who purposefully stood aside and justified our father’s actions – and Grace, whom we called Mom; an incredibly human-looking robot who was programmed to love us and protect us and look after us – and yet still stood back when Reginald hit Klaus around the face with a cane and broke his jaw, because that’s what he programmed her to do._

Allison briefly tried picturing Dad reading this, but she couldn’t. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t give Vanya the time of day; he never had. And her siblings? Perhaps Luther, on the moon, wouldn’t get to read it – but Diego would. He’d get angry in a physical way, as he always did, and Klaus too, perhaps, in some crack den or rehab bedroom – he might read it and laugh in that flighty way of his. Were they picturing her? Curled up in bed, gripping the book so tight she’d already ripped a few pages?

_Every family has secrets, but a superhero family has more than most. And I, in possession of my father’s notebook – the one he scrawled all his notes in as he raised us over the years – have more secrets than anyone else._

Allison wanted to vomit.

_The notebook was left on my doorstep in early 2018 and I recognised it instantly. The red leather of the cover, the golden embossed ‘R.H.’ – I knew Dad would be looking for it. He’d go absolutely feral, I’m sure, to realise it was missing. So I took photos of every page, the details he made of our childhoods, the intense and clinical way he viewed us all, and then I mailed the book back. I let him have it._

_There are no more secrets left for him to hide, anyway._

**_NUMBER ONE_ **

****

****

_According to our father’s notes, Number One was the most loyal of his children. In reality, this meant that by being bestowed the all-mighty number of One and made team leader, he believed that his father loved him. Number One always believed that his father loved him._

_It’s sad, really; not even pathetic, just heart-wrenchingly sad – because Number One was wrong. Luther, as he came to be called, was wrong._

_Our father never loved anyone at all. No one but himself._

“Do you think she’s right?” Luther asked on the phone. He’d only read his chapter so far; had asked Pogo to send up the ebook file so he could read it on a screen in the Hargreeves space station on the moon. Allison was a few chapters ahead. “Do you think he never loved us?”

Allison hummed. She didn’t want to hurt him. She _really, really_ didn’t want to hurt him. “I think he loved the idea of us, of what we could do for him,” she decided. “I don’t think he was ever really a father, though, Luther.”

There was a quiet moment, and Allison thought about the more damning part of that chapter:

_I think I noticed it first; the shared glances, the sneaking off. Numbers One and Three had always been close; Luther and Allison. The two cliques inside the family tended to consist of lower numbers and higher ones – One, Two and Three were a unit, though One and Two argued ceaselessly, while Four to Seven were something else entirely. It was One and Three who had the strongest bond, I think. One and Three who checked each other’s reactions after jokes to see if the other found it funny; One and Three who took each other’s sides in arguments even when they were wrong; One and Three who held hands when they thought no one was watching._

_I can’t possibly say whether they loved each other or not, but I know that when Allison left the house at eighteen, Luther didn’t follow. And when Luther took on the assignment on the moon, Allison didn’t go to the launchpad to say goodbye._

She didn’t need the world knowing about her childhood infatuation with Luther—about, about whatever that was. About what came and went in a household where they knew no one but each other. Where they weren’t allowed friends, or relationships, where their closest bonds had to be with each other or they would have no one at all.

Luther, in a moment of strange, emotional courage, asked, “Should I have followed you? When you left?”

Allison sighed. She pressed the book into the sheets so she couldn’t see the painful words. “No, Luther, you shouldn’t have.”

A beat passed, then: “Should I have stayed, though?”

Allison’s mouth twisted. “No, Luther, you shouldn’t have.”

**_NUMBER TWO_ **

****

****

_I don’t know how I lived in the same house as Diego for sixteen years without realising that he had a second power. In the end, I think it’s a show of the intense abuse of our father that it was hidden for so long. Number Two’s popularity with fans revolved mainly around the action sequences in the Umbrella Academy’s comic run, in which Diego got to show off his abilities of projectile manipulation._

_He threw knives and they would follow his whims._

_The power can extend further than that, I’m sure. He’s redirected bullets, once a car from steering off a bridge, and I’ll advise that you never play him at a game with dice – he_ can _choose how they’ll land._

_But according to the notebook, those nights he was whipped from bed and marched down the corridor, returning hours later soaking wet and crying were due to a hidden power of not needing to breathe._

_That’s right: our father left him to drown in a water tank for entire nights, until Diego learnt to hold his breath for days at a time. I’m not sure who owns the world record of holding their breath the longest, but I promise you Diego’s got you beat._

_But it makes sense, in retrospect._

_I always wondered how he could withstand Luther choking him out for so long, whilst Reginald watched, impassive. When it stretched past a minute, I always thought someone would intervene._

_They never did, of course._

“That fucking _bitch,_ ” Diego snarled down the phone.

Allison hummed. “Took the words right out of my mouth. Why didn’t you tell us?”

“What?”

“About your breathing thing?”

Diego huffed down the line. “It doesn’t fucking matter – what matters is that she’s airing all our dirty laundry, Allison! She didn’t even _ask._ Surely that’s like, illegal or something? Right?”

Allison had thought the same thing, but: “You really want to take our sister to court? She’s family—”

“ _Family?_ Fucking hell, Ally, have you even read your own chapter? God, she drags you through the mud! When I see her, I’m gonna fuckin’—I’m gonna let her have it. You realise how much money she’s made off our misery, Allison? Do you? Do you?”

“I heard a rumour you shut the hell up,” Allison replied. Of course she knew. Vanya had told the world all their darkest secrets and gotten away with it, too.

**_NUMBER THREE_ **

****

_No one was surprised when Allison became an actress. She’s picked up an Emmy and an Oscar in the past decade for her work, but her abilities were always about getting what she wanted. “The Rumour” as she came to be known, has the ability to warp reality. Honestly, not even Dad knew how much damage she could do._

_She could change people’s minds, their actions, their hearts – she can make you love her, or hate her, or desperately wish to please her. But could she change reality itself? Reginald seems to think so, though his notes state that she’s not been successful yet. She’s never said that JFK wasn’t assassinated and made it so. She’s never said that Santa Claus is real and forced him into existence._

_She has, however, rumoured her way into Hollywood. At least, that’s how I assume she got in. How else would a teenage superhero with no acting experience get her first role within a week of moving away from home. We had no social skills, no understanding of anything other than fighting crime and negotiating hostage situations. We were raised to save lives, save the world (at least, the others were) – what the hell did eighteen-year-old Number Three know about the movie industry that booked her a blockbuster as her debut role?_

“You’re not reading it, Patrick,” she said when her husband slipped into their room to see how she was doing.

“Ally—”

“She’s told the world that I rumoured my way into my roles,” Allison huffed. “She’s called me a hypocrite and a liar – she’s told the whole world about Luther—”

“What about Luther?”

Allison flopped back on the pillows. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that she’s going to drag us all down to her level.”

_In an issue of ‘People’, Allison is quoted as having said “Family is very important to me. I grew up in a very tight-knit household, and now that I’m older, I want to create my own family, my own house, and fill it with love.”_

_Family is very important to Allison Hargreeves, I’m sure. Perhaps it wasn’t a decade ago when she married and invited not a single sibling to her wedding. Perhaps it wasn’t five years ago, when she brought a baby girl into the world and I found out online. Perhaps it wasn’t when she left the Academy at eighteen, six months after Diego left, seven months after Ben died, five years after Five disappeared, and said goodbye to absolutely no one._

“Allison…”

“Don’t,” she huffed. “Could you just leave me alone? I want to get through this today. I don’t want to spend an extra second on this if I don’t have to.”

**_NUMBER FOUR_ **

****

****

_Klaus’ powers, to this day, are a mystery to me. Probably to him, too._

_He’s been seeing ghosts as long as he’s been alive, though from what I remember, he wasn’t aware that the people he was seeing were dead until he was four or five years old. According to Reginald’s writings, he believed that Klaus would have the ability to summon and dispel ghosts, as well as, he hoped, control and make them corporeal._

_Somehow, Reginald’s notes imply that Klaus was a bigger failure than me. I never believed that, but I would’ve killed for his powers. Would’ve done anything just to be like them, and Klaus – Klaus always to be ordinary. He once said that if we’d been able to swap, he would’ve done it in a heartbeat._

_I would’ve, too, though we used to fight about the other’s opinion._

_I don’t understand how he could ever be willing to give up powers, and he can’t comprehend me ever wanting them._

_But whilst I couldn’t forge special abilities that would put me on the team, Klaus could numb his entire body to the otherworldly and began doing so from age thirteen._

“How do you even have this number?” Allison asked when Klaus inevitably phoned.

“Hm? I don’t know, sissy-poo, I just do,” he replied.

“I suppose you’re mad about how she wrote about you?”

Klaus hummed. “Nah, I don’t know. I think it’s _hilarious_ —the whole book. What a bold move; wish I’d thought of it—”

“Klaus! She’s telling our private lives to the whole world!”

“Yeah!” Klaus cackled. Definitely high or drunk or some mixture of the two. Allison huffed. “And she nailed you, huh! What did she call you? Manipulative? Selfish? Wish I had thought of it!”

Allison hung up.

_Klaus, too, was a liar. Dad documented that fact many times, but so did the rest of us. Klaus lied about missions and meals and messages heard from other siblings. He lied about stealing clothes, stealing money, stealing drugs. He lied about his brothers and sisters and caretakers, and he never once seemed to care if he was caught out. He would just double down and insist._

_That, at least, is what he did when he talked about seeing Ben after our brother died. He lied and insisted and broke our hearts a hundred times over because of it._

Allison could tell when Klaus had reached this passage, because he texted the words: “that bitCH”.

**_NUMBER FIVE_ **

****

****

_Ask anybody who the smartest student was, and they would say Five. The ballsiest, the bravest, the most daring._

_When you get to number five as you count, one to seven, you start reaching the zone of tragedy inside the Umbrella Academy. You reach the missing, the dead, and the forgotten children._

_Five is the missing one._

_Five is the one who could slip between the atoms of the universe and go wherever he pleased. In a burst of blue light he could flash between places, and – he insisted – between times. He vanished after an argument with our father; I can still picture the knife he stabbed into the table, and for years afterwards would slip my hand out so I could press my fingertips into the mark it left behind._

_He stormed out and never came back._

_Two weeks later a portrait of him appeared on the wall, a silent warning that we too might vanish if we disobeyed._

_I was sure he would come back. I was so certain. Every night for years after, I made his sickly favourite: a peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich, and would leave it by the door. I left all the lights on in case he saw the place dark and decided to leave again. The moment Five vanished was the moment I became truly alone._

_When I said the family was split into two, I meant it. Though Four came and went between the groups, Five, Six, Seven—we had a quiet kind of companionship that involved sitting in the same room to read and then telling each other about what we’d learnt. I loved reading historical non-fiction, Ben adored science fiction, and Five devoured books on mathematics and science. It wasn’t a perfect friendship; Five was abrasive, rude, uncomfortable with touch and kind words. He was the smartest and knew it, flaunted it, and often became condescending if he had to explain anything twice._

_But he was still my best friend. And I was still alone after he left._

Allison did not wait for a call from Five. She just silently burned over a chapter dedicated to a friendship she’d barely even known about. Five was one of the Umbrella Academy students; she had never noticed this divide of upper and lower numbers. For Allison, growing up, the cliques were powered children and non-powered. Six against one.

**_NUMBER SIX_ **

****

****

_Ben was the best of us._

****

Allison placed the book down and stared at the phone on her nightstand. She willed Ben to call, knowing he would not. She didn’t want to know what Vanya had to say about him when she’d dragged down everyone else. She didn’t want to know if she’d told the world about his gruesome death, the truth about the eldritch monster in his chest, the funeral and the weeks after when every student left the Academy bar one.

She skipped to the next chapter instead.

**_NUMBER SEVEN_ **

****

****

_Everyday, I take at least three pills. They’re for my anxiety and I’ve been taking them since I was four years old. I don’t remember beginning, but they’ve always been ever-present. In my teenage years, as my siblings rocketed to fame and our father started dismissing my very existence, the only time Reginald spoke to me was to ask if I had taken my medication._

_He would say it almost as if he cared._

_Now, I suppose, he did. Because the medication was for a lot more than anxiety._

_Perhaps we should start with Grace, the robot nanny who became our mother – perhaps we should start with the plethora of dead and injured nannies that came before her. You’ll never find them, of course; Reginald hid them too well, paid off the families. Perhaps we should start with the anonymous women whose broken bodies became the inspiration for a caretaker who couldn’t die, and just got right back up when thrown across the room._

_Or maybe we could start with forty-two women giving birth to forty-three babies in October of 1989 – and yes, you read that correctly, because amongst all the babies born on that day, two of them were twins. I know this because Reginald knows this, because he wrote it down. Perhaps we could start with forty-three super-powered children, the twins that became Luther and Five, and a billionaire who bought seven children from their unwitting parents._

_But, actually, why don’t we start here: if there are forty-three super-powered children, why would one of them be ordinary after all? Why would_ I _be the normal one?_

_Simple: because Reginald Hargreeves grew scared of my powers when I was just four years old, and so made me forget that I ever had them._

Allison raced to the bathroom and threw up after reading the passage where Vanya detailed the day she became ordinary. Reginald had kept meticulous notes and it left the blame squarely on him for the medication and Allison for the rumour.

Somewhere behind her, her phone was ringing. Perhaps it was one of her agents, PR or otherwise – or maybe it was Vanya, calling to see how she liked the book, how she liked the secrets that spilled out onto the pages. Maybe it was Luther, calling to ask if he was really and truly Five’s twin – something Allison had never even _heard_ before. Maybe it was the police, asking her about the dead nannies that Vanya so happily told the world about; the ones Allison couldn’t even _remember._

Maybe it was Reginald himself, requesting Allison to rumour the whole world into forgetting about the book, so his crimes could lay buried and hidden.

She sat back against the bathtub and waited for the ringing to stop. Vanya had powers and she had helped smother them. Vanya had _powers_ and Reginald had doped her up to keep them hidden. _VANYA HAD POWERS_ and had been ostracised her whole life for being normal.

Allison flushed the toilet and washed out her mouth. She left the book on the floor and the phone on the nightstand and booked a ticket to New York.

As had always been the case, Allison would only find the answers she was looking for at The Umbrella Academy.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!!!! pls talk to me in the comments!!
> 
> i'm once again in need of some help deciding what fic to write, but this time for day 21: "i don't feel so well". the prompts are "chronic pain, hypothermia or infection" so if you have ANY ideas for tua and any of those prompts/themes, that would be SUPER helpful! again, i'll gift the fic to whoever's idea i use, thank u!!


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